Premonitions
by Ravenglade
Summary: When a friend has a 'true dream' in which you die, is it possible to prevent it? And how do you live the time that is left to you?


Premonitions

The conflict had raged for hours, with neither the elven armies nor their combatants gaining any ground as wave upon wave of orcs saturated the fields with dead and dying. Elladan, fighting back to back with Legolas, couldn't remember the last time he had battled so hard for so long – the sweep of his sword had fallen into a deadly rhythm, and the shouts and noise of the combat became increasingly dulled as he struggled to keep his concentration. But his efforts had paid off, and at last the orcs were retreating.

His elation at the orcs' rapidly thinning numbers was swiftly dispersed as he heard a sudden choked cry, and felt the other elf stumble and fall to his knees. "Legolas!" _Oh, no. _

He dropped down and put a supporting arm around his friend's shoulders. "What's happened? Tell me, quickly, we need to do something…"

Legolas took a ragged breath. "I…" He had instinctively wrapped an arm across his chest to stem the flow of blood and gasped as Elladan gently lifted it away. "Don't…"

"I have to." Elladan had never felt so overwhelmingly useless; there was just too much blood, flowing with terrifying swiftness from a long slashed wound. He automatically lifted his friend's ominously limp wrist and checked for a pulse, and his alarm increased when he felt a heartbeat that was rapidly slowing down. _He's not…he isn't…is he?_

Elladan looked in horror at Legolas' drained face and waited with head bowed, in devastated, frozen expectation, as the pulse began to fade away completely…

-----**-----

"No!"

Elladan sat bolt upright, breathing heavily. "No, no, no…oh, thank Iluvatar, no…" He felt the mumbling oddly comforting as he clutched a handful of blanket, trying to reassure himself that the horror was over and he was back in the real world.

_It can't be. _

He sat there shakily for a few moments, disturbed by the growing realisation that his nightmare had been a lot more than a dream. It had been more vivid, more real, and shot through with the terrifying inevitability that he had come to dread.

Trying to control the growing wave of panic he expected after these visions, he took an uneven breath, gazed steadily straight ahead and tried to unconvince himself. There was always the possibility that he was mistaken, he reasoned; there had been times before when he had been in this situation and jumped to conclusions. There was always a hazy line between the true dreams and the ones that were simply that: dreams. It just _couldn't _have been true. He had never dreamed something so awful before.

_Who am I kidding?_

There had been times before, certainly, when he had identified a dream wrongly as a true one; but that was a long time ago, and he had since learned to distinguish between them. And this time he was sure: horribly, heavily, inexorably sure.

Now the panic was gone he felt a lump rising in his throat and, almost afraid to go back to sleep, he pulled on a robe and padded towards the sitting room door to decide what to do next. _Do I tell him? If it were me, would _I _want to know? _He reached for the handle and stopped, asking himself the question he had been trying to avoid.

_How do you tell __your best friend he's going to die? _

-----**-----

Legolas had visited Imladris, at intervals between six months and a hundred years, since he was a child and was a more or less permanent fixture in Elladan and Elrohir's lives. The image of him sitting on the floor of the twins' private sitting room, hands clasped around his knees and gazing meditatively into the distance, was one that Elladan recalled from almost as far back as he could remember. Unlike his sociable twin he made only a few, very close friends, and without question Legolas was his oldest and dearest.

_And he's going to die._

Legolas was sitting there now, exactly as he had so many years ago, staring unseeingly into the faintly glowing ashes in the fireplace. Elladan slipped past him to sit opposite, and managed to smile despite the tears threatening to well up. "Can't you sleep either?"

The other elf inclined his head briefly and sighed. "Bad dreams. You?"

"Yes. The same." _Shall I tell him? _

_Does he want to know?_

Legolas looked at him perceptively with narrowed eyes. "What?"

Elladan averted his eyes, gazing too at the smouldering embers, and one of the tears slipped past. His friend saw it and guessed. "You had a true dream."

"Yes." Legolas was one of the few people who knew about Elladan's 'true dreams': unbidden glimpses of the future, almost a weaker version of his father's gift of foresight.

"And?"

Elladan took a deep breath and clasped Legolas' hand, squeezing it with unspoken support. "I saw you. And me. And…" _Another tear. And another._

"Tell me."

He swallowed and finished his sentence. "And you were dying."


End file.
